Morning Has Broken
by cuddyclothes
Summary: A bystander thinks that Castiel is insane and that Dean is his keeper. Events might prove him right.


Morning Has Broken

Milo waited at the bus stop outside the diner, cursing himself for having missed the 8:10 bus. Now he'd be stuck here for an hour. He decided to go in the Humdinger diner and get himself some tea and a bear claw. People watching was one way to pass the time.

He took a seat in a booth by the window.

Outside, he saw two men arguing. The man in the trench coat held a large, disgusting-looking plastic bag that dripped grey guck onto the sidewalk.

"Cas, get rid of that thing!" said the guy in the denim coat with him. "That is just gross!"

"But Dean, we need the contents."

"We needed the contents before it _rotted_. Stop hanging onto it and dump it in the trash."

"The trash?"

"Trash can, whiz kid. Right there. And remember to wash your hands when we go inside."

"Dean", the guy in denim, watched impatiently as the man in the trench coat, "Cas", stared down into the trash can.

"What if we have to get it out again?"

"I told you, it's rotten! We need to get a new one. Jesus, Cas, throw it in the trash and follow me."

Milo watched the two men enter the diner, the bell over the door ringing cheerfully. Dean steered Cas toward the men's room.

"Wash your hands," Dean ordered.

"But why?" The man in the trench coat was clearly puzzled. "What does that change?"

Dean shook his head. "Hygiene, it's basic hy—oh, forget it, wash your hands."

Wow. Trench coat. The poor bastard. Either retarded—oops, mentally challenged—or out of his mind. Denim was his aide. Milo hoped it wasn't a 24-hour shift.

Milo tried not to stare as Dean took a seat at a booth right in Milo's eyeline. The waitress, in her yellow uniform, walked over to the booth. She sure was friendlier than she had been to Milo.

"Good morning! And what would you like this morning?"

"I'll have coffee and a slice of cherry pie, and just coffee for my friend."

"Right away!"

For some reason, it took a long time for Cas to come out of the men's room. A very long time. Dean kept looking it toward it, even when the waitress brought him the cherry pie.

"I thought you'd like it ala mode," she said.

Dean looked up at her. "Thanks, sweetheart." He gave her a flirtatious grin, then turned his gaze back to the bathroom. Various images of what the guy in the trench coat could be doing, all of them unpleasant, flitted through Milo's mind.

There was a loud crash in the men's room, followed by another. Dean leapt up and ran to the bathroom. Milo's heart skipped a beat when he thought he saw Dean reaching for a concealed gun. Maybe the guy in the trench coat was a violent criminal? Dean was his cop escort?

Holy crap, Milo might have to make a run for it. As he was calculating his chances of getting behind the diner counter before the shooting started, the two men came out of the men's room. Cas, the man in the trench coat, was soaking wet. Water and stains spilled down the front of his coat, and there were paper towels in his hair.

"This is gonna cost a goddamn fortune," Dean fumed. "I just got a decent bankroll together, and now I'm gonna have to pay for everything you trashed."

Cas looked baffled. "But Dean, the water didn't come out of the faucet. There no handles to turn. So I pulled the faucet out to investigate. And the soap thing didn't have any handles on it. I had to take it down to get the soap so I could wash my hands. You did say that hygiene is important."

"Cas, you moron, it's automatic! You wave your hands under the faucet and the water comes out! Same thing with the soap!"

"Oh." Cas nodded, a slight frown on his face. "But that makes it harder to get the water."

"And the paper towels-?" Dean's tone was agonized.

"There was no way to get them out of the container, so I took it out of the wall. But the water was spraying, and I tried to put the faucet back and the container with the paper towels fell down on me and..."

Milo stifled a giggle. These guys were just too much.

The waitress screamed inside the men's room, then came storming out and fixed Cas with a look that would have struck him dead.

"You—you—what is WRONG with you? You tore up our bathroom! Are you crazy?" She looked at Dean. "Is he crazy?"

"Yeah, yeah, he's crazy," Dean said impatiently, pulling a large roll of bills out of his inside jacket pocket. "Look, this should pay for the bathroom—" Jeez, poor Dean, having to take care of a crazy guy with major anger management issues. And the guy in the trench coat looked so serene. Must be a sociopath, Milo decided.

"Jack!" the waitress hollered.

A brawny man in a t-shirt and stained apron came in from the kitchen. The waitress looked down at Cas.

"This is Jack, he's the manager. Jack, this lunatic absolutely destroyed the men's room! He tore everything out of the wall!"

"Brenda, call the police. I'm not having a dangerous maniac walking around loose."

"But I was merely trying to obey your rules of hygiene—" Cas said.

"Get us out of here NOW!" Dean ordered.

And suddenly they were gone. The booth was empty, leaving only the pie with the melting ice cream and the roll of money. Brenda gave a shocked squeal, and Jack said, "Oh my Christ! What just happened?"

Milo was really glad he'd missed the bus.


End file.
